NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
I find Daisy sitting in the Pie Shop with her old friend Val Eliot. Val’s black-framed glasses have rounded rectangles like old TV screens. Wavey black hair hangs down the side of her face. Val holds a piece of plastic-coated card. Her laptop is on the table in front of her—Daisy waves to me and gestures towards a vacant seat at their table.
“What is that thing?”
“Val, do you remember Fred?”
“Hi Fred, this is a wrapper that cannot be opened.”
“Yes, it’s a big trend in retail.”
Val turns it over in her hands.
“A small thing imprisoned in a transparent plastic blister on this big piece of thin cardboard stock.”
“A Universal Serial Bus, or USB.”
“You are quite the techy, Daisy.”
“I read that on the package, Fred, while we were browsing in SnazE. It’s the interface, basically a flash drive.”
“Is that printed there too?”
Val shows me the back of the rectangle where the information is printed.
“I am going to put my stock list and passwords, and stuff on it.”
Val is scrutinizing the card, still searching for a way to open it.
“Aren’t they already protected on your computer?”
“This is backup, Fred, and there are some I just keep in my head, which also needs backup.”
“I get that. You will probably need a pair of scissors to free your drive.”
“Do you have a pair, Fred?”
“No, not on me.”
“I’ll go ask at the counter.” Daisy gets up and walks over to the barista, who is waiting for customers.
Val hands me the imprisoned object of her attention.
“Do you see any secret access point?”
I look at the back for a dotted line indicated by an ‘open here’ instruction.
“No, I don’t. This thing is serving a life sentence.”
“Right, and how many thousand years does plastic last?”
“Who knows?”
“Obviously, I can’t wait it out!”
“No, it devolves into nano and microplastics which are now everywhere.”
“Devo!”
“I saw a bumper sticker the other day saying, ‘Devo was right’.”
Daisy returns without scissors.
“They don’t serve customers with scissors.”
“We don’t have any scissors!”
“I know Val, I mean they do not have any for loan.”
“Not even something with a little flavoring? Vanilla or spearmint, say?”
“Val, who ever heard of flavored scissors? Besides, no flavor will free that thing!”
“Think of scented handles, Daisy. Surely, they have loose catnip!”
“Why should they?”
“Because they have a cat. I saw a tabby in the back when the cashier went through the swing door.”
“Wow! That might have been ‘Sfumato’. She used to hang out in Arty Bliemischt’s studio, right above here.”
I shake my head, “Sfumato was a tortoiseshell, not a tabby.”
“Oh! right Fred, Didn’t Arty take her when she moved out?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyway, if they have catnip, I am sure it is only for cats.”
“Val, you mean if a cat came in here, they would serve the feline with a nip?”
“Mrs. Rutherford would, Val. The barista referred me to their website.”
“Oh! Right, some corporate concoction, thousands of words of legalese covering every possible sort of liability in relation to Felis catus.”
“Cactus, what that got to do with it?”
“No, ‘Catus’, not cactus, it’s a legal document, and therefore larded with Latin!”
Val sips her mint tea. “I remember Mrs. Rutherford from my last visit. Where is she when we need her?”
Daisy drains her coffee and the bracelets on her right arm cascade from her wrist to her elbow. “She left after the place was bought out by Jake Trip.”
“She would have provided scissors!”
“No doubt, Val.”
“Now this is corporate-owned.”
“And ruled, Val. They knocked the word ‘Cavendish’ off the name. Now it is just, ‘The Pie Shop’.”
Daisy folds her arms on the table. The bracelets rattle on the top catching a sunbeam coming in under the awning, which is only halfway down. “They might at least have called it the ‘Fauxmont Pie Shop’!”
“Well, nobody used the full name of the place. When did you last hear anyone refer to the ‘Cavendish Pie Shop’?”
“Can’t remember, Fred, but the name over the door was unique.”
“True, how many coffee shops are named after a Lab?”
“There might be one in Cambridge, Fred.”
“Yes, that’s where Henry Cavendish discovered hydrogen back in the eighteenth century. He called it inflammable air.”
“Well, they might have changed the name to, “Henry’s Place” with an explanatory plaque!”
“Fred, why don’t you suggest that to the management?”
“Ha, ha, ha, as if they would listen to me!”
Val has used a thin flat key from her crowded ring to force a small separation between the plastic and the card. She holds up the key.
“The key to this prison. Here we go!”
She is pressing the key further in between the two layers.
“At this rate, you won’t get the thing out until after Christmas!”
“Okay, Daisy, have you got a pocketknife?”
“Here, try one of these plastic knives.
I hand her my plastic knife, unneeded, for my Blueberry Extravaganzo, advertised as ‘The best muffin experience on the Eastern Seaboard’.”
Val tries to press the blade into the gap she has made, and it snaps.
“Okay! Look at that.”
“Good one Val, the sharp end ought to finish the job.”
“It is probably going to break off!”
It does.
“Alright, now there is enough of a flap to pull apart.”
She grasps the small newly separated pieces and starts pulling them apart. The cardboard tears off just short of her objective in the plastic blister.
“Here, try this.”
The barista puts a paring knife on the table.
“Well, thanks!”
Val eases the blade towards her imprisoned thumb drive and twists it gently, making a gap wide enough for it to drop onto the table.
“Good tool!”
She hands him the knife. He walks back to his counter.
“Now I need to load all my customers on here.”
She starts up the computer and plugs the drive into the side.
“This thing needs more juice!”
Val pulls a small battery with a solar panel, from her bag.
“Here’s a recharge!” She plugs the cable from the battery into the second port on the side of her MacBook Air.
“What kind of service do you provide?”
“Fred, it is a store in Western Massachusetts, called “Factotum Books”, and we have a sideline in self-publishing.”
“That sounds like a tough business!”
“It is. We have not made a profit since we opened in 2013.”
“How do you stay afloat in the internet age?”
“My partner was a wealthy doctor at Mass General, and she left us an endowment when she died in 2019.”
“That qualifies as a minor miracle!”
“Indeed, doc assured that we will always have the best of literature in English and selected translations on the shelf.”
“The best in who’s judgement?”
“Hers!”
“Do you agree with it?”
“Mainly, but I have my doubts about the list being relevant to the next generation.”
“Well, as long as literature is taught in colleges and schools, there should be a demand.”
“That changes over time, though.”
“So, what does Factotum publish?”
“We specialize in local writers, a couple of poets, a romance novelist, and our best seller is a guide to native herbs and mushrooms in the locality.”
“Yeah, I would buy that!”
“Doc was shocked when she found her nephew had graduated in English from Prestige University, right here, without ever reading a book.”
“That is absurd!”
“Fred, he just read study guides online to write his papers, and memorized for tests, and that was it.”
“With ChatGPT he wouldn’t even have to write!”
Daisy puts a hand on Val’s arm.
“Did he learn anything?”
“Yeah, he is a competent techy and an expert at online searches. He can also manage the store when I am away.” Val sips some more mint tea. “He is also the store’s only other employee.”
Daisy takes her hand off Val’s arm and her bracelets rattle on the table.
“Val, what about the human part of the so-called humanities?”
“Taylor Swift seems to be a good source.”
“Okay, I mean the pleasure of reading. I have always been a painter, but reading has kept me sane at times.”
“Like what?”
“Like, Mark Twain, you know, ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.’”
“Well, there isn’t anyone like Mark Twain.”
“Ain’t that the truth!”
“My nephew listens to podcasts and reads a lot online.”
“No, I mean imaginative reading. Like reading Jane Austin or Herman Melville.”
“Daisy, dear Daisy! Those dusty old tomes are not part of his world.”
“He had to study them I hope.”
“Sure, as I just explained, that was just a necessary hassle.”
“You mean the novels didn’t tell him anything?”
“Right, it is all in an eightienth or nineteenth-century context.”
I scrunch up the paper my muffin came in. “Well, PU didn’t do its job!”
“Look, Fred, the so-called humanities have been screwed up!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it is all about getting the degree, and the social status it confers. I doubt if anyone is ever going to care what he knows about Mr. Darcy or events on the Pequod, for that matter.”
“How sad.”
“The sad part is that he doesn’t care either.”
“Fred, I think you are right, but historically, how many people have ever read literature with a capital, L?”
“Okay, Val there is a certain amount of class and snobbery in all this, but there is more.”
“What? For instance.”
“Continuity, Val.”
“You mean tradition?”
“Yeah, it has been called the ‘main current.’”
“Right Fred, flowing from batteries through circuit boards and amplifiers!”
Val leans back and takes off her glasses holding them in the air,“You might say literary books are cultural batteries.”
“Music, too, I mean recordings.”
“Right Daisy, you need the right connector to get plugged in, though.”
